Friday, August 22, 2014

Inspired by Rachels great jumper my daughter wanted a similar one made, so we came up with this one.

The fabrics are from Spotlight. I'm not overly happy with the quality of the fox fleece, its faded out after prewashing and has some spots where its missing colour, not big enough to worry about but for a so called premium fleece who's full price is $16.99pm its pretty crappy.

Size wise - Its a sz 14, with the arms lengthened by 1" and the body shortened by 2" plus a swayback adjustment of 1" (she's about 5'4"). 5/8" FBA which was eased into the side seams. Otherwise its straight from the pattern and its fits her really well.

I overlocked all the seams and then topstitched the bindings down.

I asked her if this was her Fonzie pose and got asked who's that...sigh, I'm feeling old!

Tuesday, August 19, 2014

I'm kind of late on the cambie bandwagon, but I finally downloaded it and made it up!

Fabric is from the clearance table at spotlight, its a cotton voile. Lining is a cotton poplin.

Adjustments:

I started with a sz 16 and changed the front to a princess seam using the bodice from Colette 1020 (which already had a FBA of 1")

Added a side panel that was shirred (I did this by taking an inch off the side seams on the front and back bodice then made up a shirred panel that measured 2"+seam allowances when it was done), the skirt has enough gathers that I didn't worry about adding any width to it, I just gathered it a bit less.

Took a wedge out of the back neckline of about 1" tapering down to nothing at the waistline.

Added 1/2" to the shoulder height.

Petited the bodice by 1" and took an extra 1/2" out as a swayback adjustment.

I've got some rippling at the princess seams, every time I sew with voile I get this, I think its a combination of the thin fabric and being pulled tight by the shirring. Next time I sew with voile I'll try underlining it and see if that helps.

I'm happy with this, it needs a couple of small tweaks before I sew it again - There is still too much length in the back bodice and it needs more length at the front bodice. I want to add a little more ease to the bodice, probably an inch to the side shirred panel. It's the first time I've used a side shirring panel and it worked pretty good, it changes the construction steps a bit and makes it harder to fit as I sew but means its a dress I'll wear a lot more.

Monday, August 11, 2014

One thing I've really missed wearing is a fitted stretch jacket. I used to have a couple of them and wore them to death and never replaced them when they got too small. I've tried on RTW ones since and they are all ridiculously too big on the shoulders. This jacket is my first attempt to fit a TNT stretch blazer.
I picked this pattern up at the latest Spotlight sale, cut a Sz18 with the c-cup front. These patterns come with a 1" seam allowance so you can fit as you go. Its a good idea but if you use the full 1" seam allowance you end up with ridiculously wide shoulders on them, so just keep that in mind if you make one.

I added a 1" FBA and 1" bicep width and then muslined this up. Pretty good fit width wise, I used the 1" seam allowances on the upper back and nipped it in at the waist. Added a bit to the hips on the back. I did take in the princess seam above and below the bust and also narrowed the shoulders by about 1".

I wanted to keep it casual so didn't add shoulder pads and didn't worry about the inseam pockets or the faux pocket flaps.
Fabric is a poly ponte I picked up at a Lifeline shop, its very spongy and very 1970's plastic feeling but feels like it could be blown up and would still be wrinkle free, lol. Lining is a stretch satin that I also used for my Lekala 4329 jacket.

The fit still isn't perfect, I still have too much excess across the upper chest and I think the button spacing looks funny, I actually lowered the placement by about an inch but I think they need to be lowered again. I might lengthen it by an inch or two as well, it looks a bit short. I need to wear it around a bit first though and then tweak it, I picked up some nice uncut corduroy this weekend that I want to make the next version out of.

The site is skewed towards more curvier sizes but I do think a fitting adjustment is the same no matter what your size. So please check it out and hopefully you might find some of the articles helpful next time you are doing a fitting.